August 29, 2017

Issue 103 of the CALLING CQ newsletter was mailed to subscribers about
36 hours ago, and the Web version has now been
posted. Minor differences between
the two may be noted as I cleaned up a few typos. I continue to make
these available on the Web because Yahoo Mail continues to mark the
newsletter as “spam” and rejects delivery. Yahoo Mail users might as
well not subscribe but look for the Web version instead. The twitter
account has been handy for these updates. Follow it
here.

More about that awesome 160M
vertical
designed for the Bouvet Island operation:

The DX Engineering and Bouvet Island teams have worked together to
design an efficient 90-foot top loaded 160-meter vertical antenna that
can be installed quickly and safely on Bouvet Island by the 3Y0Z team
this January. With a good radial system the difference in gain between a
120 ft (full quarter wavelength) vertical and this custom 90 foot top
loaded vertical is less than 0.5dB. The antenna uses a custom designed
heavy duty hinged pivot base with base insulators to accommodate a
40-foot falling derrick 3 inch heavy duty pipe for installation.

The vertical is base fed using two inductors to match to 50 ohms. The
first 70 feet of the vertical is Universal Aluminum tower (12-inch face)
and the top 20 feet is 1.875 inch diameter aluminum tubing. There are
guys at 30, 50 and 70 feet. There are also three 30-foot top loading
wires attached to the top of the tubing that are tied to anchors 60 feet
out from the base.

DXE is donating two of these vertical packages to the 3Y0Z team in case
one gets damaged (there are 300 storms per year on Bouvet).